14 DAY TRIAL // When it comes to Peer to Peer and file sharing there are many networks out there, and for each there are many clients. Some networks are older than others, and others have better clients to access them, so all in all you are looking at a great deal of freedom and flexibility. However, each network is different and has its own "ways" and each client has its pros and cons. At the end of the day, while you may be looking at a very wide palette of choices, the truth is that you usually have to make a choice, and use a certain client for a certain network, with all the limitations this implies. iSwipe comes to challenge this, and put you, the user, in the situation of only having to make one choice.
Bridging gaps iSwipe is one little program that you can use to search over many networks: the Web, FTP sites, Hotline, Napster, OpenNapster, OpenFT, eDonkey, FastTrack (Kazaa/Grokster), Gnutella and Carracho, to name just a few of the more popular ones. You have simultaneous access to all these networks and whenever you perform a search, you are searching all those networks at the same time.
The iSwipe program connects automatically to all those networks when you start it and it gives you constant feedback as to the 'state' of each peer to peer protocol, listing the number of servers, users, and files, as well as the overall size of all the available data.
Look it up for me Most peer to peer clients offer search functions, without which whey would be very useless. But iSwipe takes things one step further. There are two ways of searching, and only one of them can be active at any given time. The first is the normal, tried and true search in which you specify one or more keyword and it looks it up for you. The second is the AutoSearch in which the program will constantly keep searching until it has found a possible file, it then automatically adds that file to the download list so everything is pretty much automated. Just wind it up and let it search. For the music lover, a great feature is the ability to search the CDDB Database. Just type in an artist name and it will automatically look it up and get the information about that artist's albums and, where available, the tracks on the albums. You can even search for album cover art and adding anything to the AutoSearch is done with just the push of a button.
One relatively big window Everything you do in iSwipe takes place inside one window, and it's not even that big. There are quite a few tabs but everything is clearly marked and quite intuitive. The window however is a bit buggy and changing from one tab to another will sometimes leave elements of a tab on screen, and will end up with halves of buttons in tabs they do not belong and other such visual artifacts. The only sure way of getting rid of these, or at least the only one I have snooped out, is to resize the window, causing everything to be redrawn.
So many files, so little downloads... iSwipe, although it does, in theory, offer access to many more files than other similar applications, has downloads that seem to be less stable. There are times when a file will download to about 95% and then 'fail' which can be very annoying after it happens twice. And the rest of the time you will be often hard pressed to find anybody that does have something you are looking for. Fortunately for some, the AutoSearch feature is everything it promises to be. Just leave it to do its thing and check up on it every once in a while. The bad part is that there are a lot of junk files, and I do mean a lot. Furthermore, in order to leave iSwipe open for days on end to get that file you obviously can't be on a dial-up connection. But, other than these two limitations, it works as advertised.
The Good This program is a all in one solution for all the Peer to Peer networks you heave ever heard of. Easy to use and having many features, it looks extremely promising.
The Bad Unfortunately much of what this program can do is still a bit buggy and could use more work. Download stability is perhaps the most important aspect of a program like this, and it's sad to see it's less than 100% functional.
The Truth For a freeware application, iSwipe does get the job done admirably. It connects to so many file networks at the same time it's almost hard to believe. Unfortunately, only people with a dedicated Internet connection can make the most of it. A little more work and this could blow other P2P clients away.
Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge:
